Smalltown U.S.A.The local highschool dropout called in a bomb scare, the day I brought my science experiment to school.During a locker search, they found it. A transistor radio set built in a tobacco can.Hilarity ensued.

In a sane, rational world, a school lockdown due to a pile of pillows would be an anamoly. Questions would be raised. We would collectively ask if it was the officials, the regulations or both that were broken beyond repair.

But it isn't, so all it merits is a short piece in the local newspaper and yet another school lockdown thread on Fark in which we all shrug our collective shoulders as this has all been long since normalised.

OK, we know you all remember 2001, and how we should all be vigilant about watching each other and looking for scary things you don't understand. You did real good, and we're real proud of you. Good citizens, yes you are. You get the big gold star for that.

But we need you to dial it back a little, now. Sometimes you're going to see thing you don't understand or aren't familiar with. Assume for a second it's not a bomb or a gang of terrorists and see if that idea fits better. Just because you don't know what's going on doesn't mean it's a dangerous situation.

If you don't know who those brown guys are, just assume (for the moment) that they're just regular folks doing whatever it is that they need to do but you don't know enough about it to assume they're terrorists. Wait for them to do something terrorist-like, then call us.

And if you see a bag or a box sitting somewhere, assume (for a moment) that it's just what it seems, especially if it happens just where it would be if it's what it appears to be. If it's a brown paper bag next to a grocery store, you can almost certainly check to see if there are groceries inside before you call us. If it's a stuffed animal on the curb next to a daycare, you can probably assume it fell out of a car when somebody dropped off a kid.

This is all just good advice to make your day-to-day life a little easier. But still, the TSA would like us to ask you to freak the fark out if you see an unattended bag or more than 3 brown people talking in a language you don't understand when you're at the airport.